#AND IN ACT THREE U LITERALLY SEE HER SAYING SHE HATES HERSELF AND CANT REDEEM THE THINGS SHES

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x01 - “Heavy is the Crown”

[tumblunni]

I love Riku's character development so much seriously. He's like if some brave anime SOMEWHERE friggin EVENTUALLY wrote us a "jerkass rival gary archetype" who was actually only teasing u cos he has a big ol crush and suffers from internalized homophobia. Cos like seriously there's a fandom version of that for almost every damn "gary" out there, the straight equivelant is so fucking common that you cant expect people to not see it here too! Seriously the straight equivelant is often written really nasty and unhealthy too, how many times do we see the "bad boy" act downright abusive to his female love interest and there's not even any hint that he has a hidden mutual affection for her, or any damn reason she should care about him except 'he's sexy so its worth the abuse'? And they always fetishize the "bad boy" having so much power over her and being able to easily physically hurt her, and her being good is somehow a BAD THING and she's so 'naive and childlike' (ick!) And then there's the reverse with the anime tsundere thing where the female love interest is often LITERALLY SHOWN HITTING THE DUDE AND ITS SOMEHOW PLAYED FOR LAUGHS! And neither of these versions even have as much of a good reason for the love interest to be that way?? Like its just 'my life was hard so just put up with me making your life worse'. And the focus is all on the protagonist either magically changing them or them never changing and the protagonist was wrong to ever want an actual healthy relationship!

Seriously, Riku having a crush on Sora would be SO MUCH INFINATELY BETTER because its a story of that sort of rival -> villain -> best friend/love interest thing but without a single horrible cliche abusive relationship trope. Riku himself realizes he was wrong and works to redeem himself and if anything his problem is that he tries too hard to go it alone without Sora's help. And he completely ditches all of the cruel behaviours after his redemption, there's no attempt to say 'thats just who i am and i cant change'. And he's just written so well even during his villainy, its clearly established very early on that he cares A LOT about sora and his whole turn happened because he gave in to his baseless anxieties that sora was abandoning him/never really cared about him the same way. I mean seriously is it any wonder people found basis for a romantic reinterpretation of this??? ITD WORK SO DAMN WELL! Like its already a supposed-to-be-platonic version of this ENTIRE ARCHETYPICAL ROMANCE PLOT and also a REALLY WELL WRITTEN ONE! And it just happens to mesh with the series's main straight love interest story being Really Bad. Sorry! I love Kairi herself but wowww there is no chemistry between her and sora aside from like.. I guess the scene where they drew each other on the cave wall as kids and then finished it at the end of the first game? That was cute. But aside from that its like the writers took it for granted that we'd just believe they were in love because theyre The Boy And The Girl. Honestly as a kid i felt more that Kairi didnt recipricate Sora's feelings and was scared of losing him snd riku as friends cos they suddenly started seeing her as a love interest and fighting over it. Basically Asexual Relateability Kairi took hold of my heart and now i can never let it go! Tho i also do like fans who interpret the whole love triangle as 'all three of them are in a polyamorous relationship and live happily ever after'. Look, just gimme anything but what we got in canon!!!

Anyway in summary i am proud that my boy went from "WAH I HATE SORA (but not really)" to "I WILL PROTECT SORA WITH MY LIFE HE IS MY GUIDING STAR (but platonically)" and i just wish they could perhaps canonize it someday. Like, even if they still wanna go endgame kairi could we maybe throw the fans a bone and canonize that riku is indeed gay/bisexual and does indeed have a crush on sora? Or, well, have any other canonical lgbt characters in the series, honestly. This series already has a frankly massive lgbt fandom!